Powell’s Downtown Location Will Partially Reopen This Week

Starting Aug. 21, part of Powell's first floor will be open for browsing with limited hours and capacity.

Powell's City of Books. (Mick Hagland-Skill)

Powell's City of Books will reopen with limited capacity and access this Friday. It will be the first time the Portland landmark has welcomed customers since March.

Today, the company announced that its three-story, West Burnside flagship will make two of its seven sections available for in-person shopping with limited hours. Starting Aug. 21, part of Powell's first floor will be open for browsing from noon to 6 pm Wednesdays through Sundays.

At the beginning of the month, Powell's reopened its Cedar Hills location. In the announcement of the downtown location's reopening, CEO Emily Powell wrote that now that the Cedar Hills store has been open for two weeks, "we are going to try a similar experiment with a limited opening of the Green and Blue rooms of our downtown store."

The Green and Blue rooms are two of the store's smaller sections, comprising new arrivals, new and used fiction, and gifts. Occupancy will be limited, and there will be a social distance waiting line outside the store.

Powell's Hawthorne location remains shuttered. Its airport store closed for good in July.

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